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Buccaneer Bunny
Buccaneer Bunny is a Looney Tunes short made in 1947 and released in 1948, directed by Friz Freleng. It features Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam, here called "Sea-Goin' Sam", a pirate. All voice characterizations in this cartoon are by Mel Blanc. Plot The cartoon opens with titles featuring an instrumental of "The Sailor's Hornpipe" (also one of the theme songs to Popeye), segueing to a scene of Sam digging a hole to bury his treasure on a beach. Sam is singing the stereotypical pirate shanty "Dead Man's Chest"--on the second strain, Sam switches from the typical "yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!" to a decidedly more original "yo-ho-ho and a bottle of... Ma's old fashioned ci-der" with a conga kick on the last syllable and a parody of "Dad's Old-Fashioned Root Beer", a well-known radio advertising jingle at that time. In attempting to bury his treasure, Sam has encroached on Bugs' domain, as Bugs happens to have his rabbit hole there on the beach. When Bugs asks him who he is, he responds in his typical way: "I'm a pirate, Sea-Goin' Sam, the blood-thirstiest, shoot-'em-first-iest, doggone worst-iest buccaneer that ever sailed the Spanish main!". Bugs spends the rest of the picture tormenting Sam in the usual way, taking advantage of Sam's short temper and blustery personality. At one point, Bugs disguises himself as Captain Bligh (effecting the voice and thick-lipped appearance of Charles Laughton in his portrayal of Bligh in Mutiny On The Bounty) and puts the gullible seaman through a whirlwind of shipboard chores. In a side gag, Bugs is trying to hide, and a pesky parrot keeps crowing, "He's in there! He's in there! Awk!" Finally, Bugs asks the parrot, "Polly want a cracker?" The parrot changes his tune, "Polly want a cracker! Polly want a cracker! Awk!" Bugs hands him a huge, lit firecracker, which promptly explodes, reducing the bird to near-skeletal remains. His last words before he drops are, "Me and my big mouth!". In a series of gags that mildly anticipate the Road Runner series, Bugs is in the crow's nest and Sam tries various unsuccessful attempts to get to him; for example, setting up a see-saw, standing on one end and tossing a rock on the other end, he springs straight up, crashes into the underside of the crow's nest, and falls back to the deck. In another one, that skirts the laws of physics, Bugs tells Sam he's going to jump. Instead, Bugs drops a convenient anvil over the side of the crow's nest, Sam catches it, and the entire ship (except for the crows nest) submerges. Sam mouths some apparent curses, then tosses the anvil over the railing and the ship resurfaces. Later on, Sam is tricked by Bugs into playing a "dare" game with matches that ends up exploding the pirate ship's powder magazine, reducing the ship to splinters. At various times, Sam gets blasted by cannon fire. First he gets tricked into a cannon by Bugs who acted just like the parrot. Then he hunts for Bugs through the ship's window's but he always gets blasted. Next he is subjected to the famous lots-of-doors in-and-out routine (previously used in Little Red Riding Rabbit) and it ends with Sam getting blasted, again. And finally after the ship blew up, when he thought Sam had Bugs cornered in his hole, you guessed it, Sam gets blasted one more time. Finally, defeated, Sam raises the white flag. Bugs turns to the audience, puts on an old-style ship captain's hat, and paraphrases John Paul Jones, "I had not even begun to fight!". Gallery Video releases *VHS - Cartoon Moviestars: Starring Bugs Bunny! *VHS - Bugs Bunny Collection: Bugs Bunny's Zaniest Toons *Laserdisc - Cartoon Moviestars: Bugs Bunny Classics: Special Collector's Edition *Laserdisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Vol. 4, Side 1: Bugs Bunny *DVD - Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5, Disc 1 *DVD - Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 5, Disc 1 *DVD, Blu-ray - Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1, Disc 1 Trivia Censorship *The WB! channel edited this cartoon to remove the part where Bugs tells Sam that "Dead men tell no tales," and Sam almost shoots himself in the head before realizing he's been tricked. This scene was also edited when shown on Cartoon Network's Latin American channel (but left intact on other Cartoon Network channels, including ones in America, Australia, and The United Kingdom) and the cartoon channel Tooncast. In contrast to the WB! version, the scene of Bugs telling Sam "Dead men tell no tales" and Sam realizing that Bugs is right was left in on both channels, but the shots of Sam pointing a gun on his head before he realizing he's been tricked were cut (making it obvious that there's something cut), similar to how Cartoon Network USA edited the 1947 Daffy Duck cartoon Mexican Joyride (which, ironically, Cartoon Network Latin America left uncut on their network). Notes *During a few explosions, Sam is shown without his beard and is shaved. Sam's shaved appearance would also come in place in Ballot Box Bunny and Big House Bunny a few years later. *A similar sequence where Bugs throws a lit match into the powder magazine of Sam's ship would later be used in Captain Hareblower (1954). *This is one of the few non-dubbed Cartoon Network/Boomerang USA airings after 1995, although a 1995 dubbed version print does exist. The version that airs is the LaserDisc print from The Golden Age of Looney Tunes. **The USA dubbed print airs on CN/Boomerang Latin America and Tooncast, but is censored unlike CN/Boomerang USA (see "Censorship" for more details). **The EU dubbed print airs on various European CN/Boomerang stations, completely uncensored like CN/Boomerang USA. External Links *Buccaneer Bunny at SuperCartoons.net *Buccaneer Bunny at B99.TV Category:Shorts Category:Films Category:Animated shorts Category:Looney Tunes Category:Looney Tunes shorts Category:Bugs Bunny Category:Bugs Bunny shorts Category:Yosemite Sam shorts Category:Yosemite Sam Category:1948 films Category:1948 shorts Category:Warner Bros. Cartoons Category:Warner Bros. Animation Category:Vitaphone short films Category:Directed by Friz Freleng Category:1940s shorts Category:1940s films Category:1940s Category:1948 Category:Sam the Pirate shorts Category:Bugs and Sam shorts Category:Merrie Melodies Category:Merrie Melodies shorts Category:Cartoons directed by Friz Freleng Category:Warner Bros. shorts Category:Story by Michael Maltese Category:Written by Michael Maltese Category:Cartoons written by Michael Maltese Category:Story by Tedd Pierce Category:Written by Tedd Pierce Category:Cartoons written by Tedd Pierce Category:Story by Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce Category:Written by Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce Category:Cartoons written by Tedd Pierce and Michael Maltese Category:Animation by Manuel Perez Category:Animated by Manuel Perez Category:Cartoons animated by Manuel Perez Category:Animation by Ken Champin Category:Animated by Ken Champin Category:Cartoons animated by Ken Champin Category:Animation by Virgil Ross Category:Animated by Virgil Ross Category:Cartoons animated by Virgil Ross Category:Animation by Gerry Chiniquy Category:Animated by Gerry Chiniquy Category:Cartoons animated by Gerry Chiniquy Category:Layouts by Hawley Pratt Category:Backgrounds by Paul Julian Category:Cartoon layouts by Hawley Pratt Category:Cartoons with backgrounds by Paul Julian Category:Film Editing by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons with sound effects by Treg Brown Category:Voice Characterizations by Mel Blanc Category:Voiced by Mel Blanc Category:Voices by Mel Blanc Category:Cartoons with voices by Mel Blanc Category:Music by Carl Stalling Category:Musical Direction by Carl Stalling Category:Cartoons with music by Carl Stalling